


The Flip Side

by Philosophizes



Category: Legion of Superheroes
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 12:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The families that came together to make the Brainiac line are reviled, but at least the Dox side gets all the fame. </p><p>Sharn is the last Nux, as Querl is the last Dox. Sharn isn't going to stand Colu if her cousin doesn't have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flip Side

The galaxy had an awful lot to say about the Doxes of Colu.

They were the ones titled Brainiac. They were the ones who destroyed planets. Everyone could give at least a simplified version of the atrocities of Brainiac 1. Fewer could give much information about his son Vril (Brainiac 2, the histories called him; though he’d never really made it clear if he actually wanted the title or not). Mostly what they could say was _‘I heard he wasn’t a very nice person’_ or _‘He overthrew the Computer Tyrants of Colu, right?’_.

The best indicator of how much you _really_ knew about the Doxes of Colu was, surprisingly to most, whether or not you had a history degree and specialized in law enforcement or the Great Crisis. The galaxy, as a whole, was no better at highlighting the quiet good in the face of the obvious evil than the average individual.

Law historians and Great Crisis enthusiasts could tell you about how Vril Dox started the Licensed Extra Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network _(‘LEGION, they called it. Now isn’t that funny?’)_ ; and gave the galaxy a viable alternative to the Green Lantern Corps at a crucial point in the Corps’ steady public opinion decline. They could tell you how it was Vril Dox that orchestrated the relocation of Rann into the destroyed orbit of Tamaran, thereby saving both species and cultures and giving the galaxy the current Tamarann. They could tell you about how the Licensed Extra Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network was pretty much the Science Police under a different name; and how the LEGION did the preliminary gruntwork for the political relations that would later make the treaties that formed the United Planets even the merest possibility.

They would debate endlessly over whether Lyrl Dox, Vril’s first son by a female being of uncertain species and planetary origin; or Pran Dox, Vril’s second son by a person or persons unknown, was the true claimant to the title Brainiac 3. Proponents of Lyrl’s claim pointed to his direct and very intentional involvement in all stages of all parts of the Great Crisis and the fact that he’d murdered his entire family to set the Great Crisis in motion. He clearly fit into the line of insanity. Proponents of Pran’s claim upheld his intimate involvement in the workings of LEGION and the architect behind much of the aforementioned preliminary alliance-building and goodwill politicking that would let the United Planets emerge out of the arrangements that ended the Great Crisis. He had clearly perfected his father’s attempts at being a good man instead of an intergalactic conqueror; though how hard Brainiac 2 had really tried to be the former and not to be the latter was rather unclear.

(Regardless, everyone would end up arguing about whether or not Pran’s mother really _was_ Queen Kommand’r of Tamaran. It was an argument fated to never be resolved.)

No one talked about Brainiac 4. Whoever they were, they were a historical non-entity to everyone but Colu; and not personally important to anyone but Brainiac 5 (who knew that Brainiac 4 was his mother, who had grown up her entire life under the control of the council, and disappeared once he was born. Her name was Kajz Dox).

Everyone had opinions on Brainiac 5 (who, for some reason, never quite managed to get known as Querl Dox).

Really, though, only a few people’s actually _mattered._

* * *

One of those whose opinion mattered was Sharn Nux- currently of Colu, fervently hoping to soon be currently of somewhere else.

The exact somewhere else didn’t matter to much to her. Anywhere was better than Colu.

There were three regards in which Sharn Nux and Querl Dox were remarkably similar.

One: the both despised Colu with a burning passion. Colu had never treated them well. As a government, they felt both to be a threat. As an institution, they were both felt to be, to varying degrees, property. As a society, both were fit to be ostracized.

Two: she was currently pulling her new biological self free from the remains of her former technological body. Sharn was doing it on a heavily-greened planetoid that boasted nothing more than a moderately trafficked space transit terminal instead of dramatically at the end of a battle, and she’d spent the time and research to do it on purpose- but there were now _two_ biological Coluans in existence. In a few minutes, she would gather up the remains of her old body (her old life), stash them in the one-hop Coluan pod she’d stolen, and self-destruct the whole thing; obliterating all traces of her flight and existence. Then she’d hop a ship at the terminal and set off for parts unknown.

Three: The wife of Pran Dox, Querl’s grandfather, was her great-aunt. They also shared a great-great-great-grandparent in the form of Shal Nux, Brainiac 1’s father. This made Querl Dox and Sharn Nux simultaneously 5th and 2nd cousins.

Sharn knew this.

Querl didn’t.

That was the first point of difference between them.

The second was that, where Querl operated, deep down, on the hope that he could one day find acceptance; Sharn had, straight through to the depths of her soul, a hot-burning _anger._ Querl policed himself for violent responses to gain acceptance and tolerance and positive interpersonal relationships through distancing himself as much as possible from the bad aspects of his family history. Sharn had decided long ago that the rest of the universe could _fuck off,_ because she was _making_ herself a place, whether anyone else liked it or not.

(Further down than Querl’s borderline-paranoia and Sharn’s encompassing rage, though, was the same stubborn drive to _prove them **all wrong**_. That was the fuel that fed the motor of their intentions. Really, they were more similar than either of them ever would have thought; and more than anyone else would ever really want to admit.)

The third was that Sharn was charging away from the Event Involving Brainiac 1 under her own volition. Querl had gone with doubt that bordered on self-loathing and under pressure.

(But they were both fleeing the backlash; because while the Doxes might be maligned for their tendency to go spectacularly insane, they were at least afforded the dignity of acknowledged rank and tended to stay away from the planet. The Nuxes had no title and a persistent flickering hope that someday they might be accepted, and took the majority of the average Coluan’s flak over the Doxes’ crimes.)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Sharn Nux is a canon comics character in the Reboot Legion. Only the relation to Brainiac 5 is an invention.


End file.
